


Breaking the Habit of Holding Back

by completelyhopeless



Series: Puzzle Pieces of Us [12]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: During the five year gap, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sparring, slight bit of crack in the fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3465797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman's visit startles the team, even more so when he insists on sparring with Nightwing in front of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking the Habit of Holding Back

**Author's Note:**

> So after I wrote the part with Jason and Dick fighting and the team watching, I wanted to do a sparring session with Batman. 
> 
> I don't write action scenes well and Dick kept wanting to get a piggyback ride instead.
> 
> In the end, I wrote a compromise of both ideas. If the piggyback idea bothers you, skip the last section. It's mostly needless fluff anyway, but I liked it.

* * *

The computer announced the arrival of Batman through the zeta tube. Wally skidded to a stop and Artemis took advantage of that fact to knock him over, and he glared at her as she smirked back at him. Kaldur frowned at them. Miss Martian and Superboy reluctantly separated and stood. Zatanna and Rocket exchanged looks. The only one who did not react was Nightwing, who did not look up from his book. After his last incident regarding his homework, his attitude was subdued, almost studious. Kaldur had meant to ask either Kid Flash or Batgirl, two who knew him best, if he was doing well or if this was some kind of act.

“Do we have a mission?” Kid Flash asked, almost bouncing over to Batman's side.

Batman ignored him, crossing close to Nightwing. “We need to talk.”

The boy set down his book with a grimace. “I know that tone. That's the _you're grounded_ tone. Only I know I don't deserve that because I haven't done anything wrong. Not lately, anyway.”

“Dude, you get grounded?”

Nightwing picked up a paper, smashed it into a ball, and threw it, hitting his friend in the head. Kid Flash could have dodged it if he'd tried, but he hadn't even moved. Kaldur frowned again, troubled by the behavior he was seeing from the team of late.

Batman continued to ignore the side conversations around him, focused on his protege. “Your recent training session with Black Canary.”

“Oh.” Nightwing winced. “I actually thought she _would_ dodge that. She'd been picking up on my movements, anticipating them. I didn't think that would hurt her, and I was holding back—”

“Exactly,” Batman said. “You have been holding back with her, with Robin, with Batgirl, and your entire team. That changes. Now.”

Nightwing actually looked around at the rest of them as though he expected them to intervene. “But I—”

“Will spar with me. Now.”

* * *

“He _was_ holding back,” Conner said, watching as Nightwing and Batman fought. “Why was he holding back with me? He knows I'm invulnerable.”

M'gann frowned, biting her lip as she reached for Conner's arm. Nightwing ducked under Batman's arm, dodging his attack and countering with one that actually made Batman gasp when the eskrima stick hit his back. He turned and knocked Nightwing flat on his back. M'gann gasped, but before Batman could finish him off or the computer announced “fail,” Nightwing rolled back onto his feet.

“Evasion isn't everything,” Batman said. “Eventually you will lose the fight. Your opponent will wear you down until you can't evade any longer. Your speed will slow. Your footing will slip. You have to attack.”

“Gee, tell me something I _don't_ know,” Nightwing muttered. “You've only been pointing that out to me since I was _ten.”_

“Yet you fight the same way.”

“It works against you,” Nightwing told him, twisting away from Batman's hand and landing in a way Conner didn't think M'gann should attempt to do with her shapeshifting.

“You're going to break your hand doing that.”

“Considering that I learned to do it while my hand was broken, I think I'll manage,” Nightwing said, taking advantage of Batman's reaction to that to attack with a fury—the kind that everyone told Conner _not_ to use when he fought.

_“I don't like this,”_ M'gann whispered through a mind link. _“I know he fought angrily with Robin, but he is worse tonight.”_

_“Hey, right now, he's kicking Batman's ass,”_ Kid Flash said. _“I'm all for it.”_

_“I am more concerned by his admission that he learned some of these maneuvers he is using while he was injured,”_ Kaldur said. _“Such a method of training—”_

_“More like torture,”_ Artemis said. _“Even my dad wasn't that bad, and he's Sportsmaster.”_

Batman went down, and the computer announced the fail this time. Nightwing smirked. “And the student eclipses the master.”

The silence that followed his words made Kid Flash suck in a breath. “Dude, I think you just really made him mad.”

“Are you sure you didn't hurt him?” M'gann asked. “Batman is more resistant to my mental probes than you are, Nightwing, but I'm not sure he's conscious. He is breathing, right, Conner?”

“Of course he's breathing. I didn't hit him that hard. And he wears body armor,” Nightwing said. “Even if he didn't or I'd exploited one of the weaknesses I know the armor has, I know I didn't hurt him that bad. I could have, but I didn't. I know when to stop.”

“Are you certain about that, Ro—Nightwing?”

“Yes, Kaldur,” Nightwing said, annoyed. “I have more control than that. I know when to hold back, remember?”

“You weren't holding back with Batman,” Artemis reminded him. “And he still hasn't moved.”

Nightwing frowned. “No. That's not possible. I didn't—I didn't hurt him. I couldn't have. It's not possible. I mean—it's Batman.”

“Your moves were reckless and rather dangerous,” Kaldur said. “We were concerned.”

“I almost put Batman in a protective shield,” Rocket added. Everyone looked at her. “What? Nightwing won, remember? He was winning and scaring everyone while he did it.”

“You are all really that scared of me?” Nightwing asked. “I didn't... I was...”

“Holding back,” Batman said, and everyone relaxed a little. “Your skill level has improved in a way that frightens you.”

Nightwing snorted, holding out a hand to help his mentor up. “Did you miss the part where it scared everyone?”

“Not everyone,” Batman corrected. He accepted the hand and let Nightwing pull him up. “You are still holding back. There is a difference between fear and control. You need to find that balance.”

Nightwing nodded. “I'll work on that.”

“See that you do,” Batman said, turning to leave.

* * *

“Hey, Batman?”

The caped man stopped, looking back at him. Dick swallowed, not sure why he wanted to ask for this and feeling like he'd never get it and so he shouldn't even bother asking. It was stupid, but he used to get it sometimes when he was a kid and now he was kind of overwhelmed—no chance at being whelmed after what just happened—and he wanted it all of a sudden. 

“Yes?”

“Can we do something we haven't done since way before I left on that mission?” Dick asked. He thought it had been a lot longer than that, but he wasn't sure anymore and didn't want to remember. “It... it can wait until later if you'd rather not get humiliated in front of the team again.”

“Humiliated?”

“Well... yeah. I always got the opinion that you didn't like it and felt it was beneath you and all, but I was a kid and I liked it and used to do it back in—before,” Dick said, correcting himself before he mentioned the circus or the fact that his parents were dead. “Still, as long as I didn't break your back or anything, maybe we could...?”

“Aren't you too old for that?”

“You'll be too old for it long before I get too old for it,” Dick told him with a smile. Bruce grunted, and Dick took that as a yes. He hopped up onto his mentor's back and let the older man carry him piggyback into the zeta tube.


End file.
